I have a question about post: Is it worth to purchase Lightroom if I already have access to Photoshop?
I mean, is there something I can do in LS that I can't do in PS?
Lightroom gives you the same raw processing engine, but also a library system as well....
If you're using PS to process and nothing else, there isn't really an advantage to LR, maybe some workflow advantages(copy and paste settings for batch processing, etc).
Personally, I don't like the LR library system, I would rather organize my files in regular windows folders etc then have them all embedded into an app. But thats me. Some people really like sorting in that type of system.
So I just stick with photoshop + bridge, which does essentially the same thing. I believe you can just try the demo though?
I find that Lightroom screws up your colors more than anything. I'll export the photo with color changes that have been made to it, and they look completely different in photoshop.
I also love Lightroom. I love the fact that i am able to have all my raw images, open right in front of me and I can view them, make fast adjustments, sort/rate them and then back to photoshop. First time I try to use it looked very useless software and I did not like it all. Now I get done with my images probably 30 % faster. Still doing my real editing in PS.
Not sure why would colors look different when sent to PS but most likely there is a setting that needs to be changed as i don't think i ever noticed anything like this.
I also really like Lightroom. If you're worried that you won't like using it you can always download the 30 day trial and give it a spin before you buy. At first I thought I'd never need anything like Lightroom, but after using it for awhile I don't see how I worked without it.
Since I don't use continuous shooting often, I feel LR's library isn't really necessary for me. I'll just stick with PS.
Maybe sounds stupid, but I won't try the trial simply because you have to sign-up to download it
I HATE sites where you have to sign-up for downloading a file, look at an image, video etc
Lightroom helped me get better at the TECHNICAL side of photography by understanding why some photos worked beter than others TECHNICALLY.
Lightroom has a lovely analyser feature that allows you to filter your shots by camera settings as well as other filters such as star ratings. I can look at my early poor roller derby shots and read off the numbers, and I can see that on my first derby outing I tried several different settings. Subsequent visits resulted in better shots, and I was able to break these down by stars and get a breakdown of what was working for me.
My workflow:
Get them into Lightroom and do a quick rejection pass. Sometimes I can do this in loupe view, but mostly I just use the arrow keys to go through them, tapping X to reject the bad ones - ones that blurry for the most part, but occasionally some of the shots that I simply don't like. These get deleted as soon as I've finished the pass.
I'll usually set the white balance for ALL shots next. Since the majority of shots were taken with the same settings this is fairly quick to do - I set one shot and balance it. The lights at the Meadowbank stadium where I shoot rollerderby are a horrible dim yellow, but I don't want to remove all the yellow lighting, so after picking a neutral target I'll push a bit of the yellow back into them white balance and then sync that to the rest.
Next I'll do another pass to look more closely at the content and start marking them up. I use the star rating system, so anything that is just ok gets left as unrated, and the shots I like get set to 1 star. Occasionally if I really like a shot at this stage it gets set to 2 stars, and I might find a few stragglers that are not worth keeping.
So now I have a pile of shots that are starred, so I filter these ones and do the processing on them. I've got lots of presets so I can quickly set up a look I like. These finished shots get quickly added to a temporary collection, and from there I can add metadata tags.
Finally, I need to publish these, so I can just drag and drop the photos I want to put online into my Flickr, Facebook and 500px folders and they get uploaded and synced. This is 2 way, so any comments from Flickr etc. get downloaded back to my computer.
I will admit, I do like the ease of tweaking a few sliders here and there. Most of my main editing will still be done in PS, but lightroom is definitely working better than I thought. I must have had some weird color profile issue going on before, since my colors stay the same now.
Lightroom's level adjustment system is fantastic compared to photoshop UI-wise. It just makes so much more sense with the way they've named/grouped the sliders and how you can actually go into the histogram and adjust it in specific ranges.
The cropping and rotating of photo's (to straighten a tilted horizon) is also awesome, so much easier than Photoshop. It actually has relative proportion cropping instead of absolute values!
I feel like those two things alone make the same things 4 times faster in Lightroom. And I'm not even using the library system at all. Rick makes me consider it, since I do my filtering just in Explorer...
I did a little experiment today. I wanted to take a studio-like photo using household stuff. I found a teal bottle and filled it with cold water and placed it on the tv table.
The main lighting was an Ipad with a white background on the right side and a mirror on the left side of the bottle.
The background was lit by my cellphone. I found an old pair of 3d-glasses which I layed on top of it, it was a nice contrast to the teal bottle.
I could have had something more "fun" in the bottle and a more interesting background but since it all was so spontanious, I just used water and wallpaper.
Minolta 500mm F8 AF mirror lens. I think its the only one of its kind. Bokeh can be a bit weird(as with any mirror lens) but its a 1.5 pound "hand-holdable"(if you have enough light) 500mm lens! ~750mm on aps-c! Weeeee
Funky bokeh:
Plenty of sharpness/contrast though, which was surprising to me.
Do a flickr search for "donut bokeh" if you like the effect, I thought it would really annoy me but if you get enough distance between your subject and BG, or avoid busy BGs its not hard to control.
Replies
What the hell is going ooon? *chews sunflower seeds* *shrug*
Edge - HMM by SauceyJack, on Flickr
I have a question about post: Is it worth to purchase Lightroom if I already have access to Photoshop?
I mean, is there something I can do in LS that I can't do in PS?
Lightroom gives you the same raw processing engine, but also a library system as well....
If you're using PS to process and nothing else, there isn't really an advantage to LR, maybe some workflow advantages(copy and paste settings for batch processing, etc).
Personally, I don't like the LR library system, I would rather organize my files in regular windows folders etc then have them all embedded into an app. But thats me. Some people really like sorting in that type of system.
So I just stick with photoshop + bridge, which does essentially the same thing. I believe you can just try the demo though?
I liked it so much that I shelled out money for it.
Not sure why would colors look different when sent to PS but most likely there is a setting that needs to be changed as i don't think i ever noticed anything like this.
I also really like Lightroom. If you're worried that you won't like using it you can always download the 30 day trial and give it a spin before you buy. At first I thought I'd never need anything like Lightroom, but after using it for awhile I don't see how I worked without it.
Since I don't use continuous shooting often, I feel LR's library isn't really necessary for me. I'll just stick with PS.
Maybe sounds stupid, but I won't try the trial simply because you have to sign-up to download it
I HATE sites where you have to sign-up for downloading a file, look at an image, video etc
Lightroom has a lovely analyser feature that allows you to filter your shots by camera settings as well as other filters such as star ratings. I can look at my early poor roller derby shots and read off the numbers, and I can see that on my first derby outing I tried several different settings. Subsequent visits resulted in better shots, and I was able to break these down by stars and get a breakdown of what was working for me.
My workflow:
Get them into Lightroom and do a quick rejection pass. Sometimes I can do this in loupe view, but mostly I just use the arrow keys to go through them, tapping X to reject the bad ones - ones that blurry for the most part, but occasionally some of the shots that I simply don't like. These get deleted as soon as I've finished the pass.
I'll usually set the white balance for ALL shots next. Since the majority of shots were taken with the same settings this is fairly quick to do - I set one shot and balance it. The lights at the Meadowbank stadium where I shoot rollerderby are a horrible dim yellow, but I don't want to remove all the yellow lighting, so after picking a neutral target I'll push a bit of the yellow back into them white balance and then sync that to the rest.
Next I'll do another pass to look more closely at the content and start marking them up. I use the star rating system, so anything that is just ok gets left as unrated, and the shots I like get set to 1 star. Occasionally if I really like a shot at this stage it gets set to 2 stars, and I might find a few stragglers that are not worth keeping.
So now I have a pile of shots that are starred, so I filter these ones and do the processing on them. I've got lots of presets so I can quickly set up a look I like. These finished shots get quickly added to a temporary collection, and from there I can add metadata tags.
Finally, I need to publish these, so I can just drag and drop the photos I want to put online into my Flickr, Facebook and 500px folders and they get uploaded and synced. This is 2 way, so any comments from Flickr etc. get downloaded back to my computer.
Snowfall. by Will_F, on Flickr
Blue - HMM by SauceyJack, on Flickr
The cropping and rotating of photo's (to straighten a tilted horizon) is also awesome, so much easier than Photoshop. It actually has relative proportion cropping instead of absolute values!
I feel like those two things alone make the same things 4 times faster in Lightroom. And I'm not even using the library system at all. Rick makes me consider it, since I do my filtering just in Explorer...
Scorpion statue by SauceyJack, on Flickr
Co. by SauceyJack, on Flickr
I did a little experiment today. I wanted to take a studio-like photo using household stuff. I found a teal bottle and filled it with cold water and placed it on the tv table.
The main lighting was an Ipad with a white background on the right side and a mirror on the left side of the bottle.
The background was lit by my cellphone. I found an old pair of 3d-glasses which I layed on top of it, it was a nice contrast to the teal bottle.
I could have had something more "fun" in the bottle and a more interesting background but since it all was so spontanious, I just used water and wallpaper.
DSCF4690 by Akram Parvez, on Flickr
DSCF4711 by Akram Parvez, on Flickr
I love this photo! If you sell prints of this let me know, I'm very drawn to it.
I also really dig the blueberries above. I can taste the blueberries just by looking at them here. The water drops are a nice touch too.
dnjksfbdkfjsdf there's a lot of great stuff in here
Spring has come by Will_F, on Flickr
Toys! - HMM! by SauceyJack, on Flickr
Mysterious - HMM [Explored] by SauceyJack, on Flickr
whoa, is that from the giger museum?
http://www.spawn.com/toys/series.aspx?series=182
DSCF2572 by mr-chompers, on Flickr
Small world by Will_F, on Flickr
Bradford Pear I by SauceyJack, on Flickr
Gull by S_Kern, on Flickr
DSC01889 by S_Kern, on Flickr
DSCF4848-001 by Akram Parvez, on Flickr
White Background - HMM! by SauceyJack, on Flickr
I attached the image and here is the original in all its largeness.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1310775/skittemstree4.JPG
tRens
Great ape by SauceyJack, on Flickr
King of the jungle by SauceyJack, on Flickr
Black rhino by SauceyJack, on Flickr
DSC02374 by S_Kern, on Flickr
Chickadee. by Will_F, on Flickr
Minolta 500mm F8 AF mirror lens. I think its the only one of its kind. Bokeh can be a bit weird(as with any mirror lens) but its a 1.5 pound "hand-holdable"(if you have enough light) 500mm lens! ~750mm on aps-c! Weeeee
Funky bokeh:
Plenty of sharpness/contrast though, which was surprising to me.
DSCF5392 by Akram Parvez, on Flickr
DSCF5322 by Akram Parvez, on Flickr
Stand developtment test 02 by LittleOddity, on Flickr
Stand development test 01 by LittleOddity, on Flickr
montreal
Khujirt
Mogolia
stitching sucks I know